


La Petite Mort

by The_Circadian



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Coming In Pants, Coming Untouched, Consent Issues, F/M, Hypnotism, M/M, Manipulation, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Voyeurism, hannibal is a skeeze, implied/referenced canon violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 07:12:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5082592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Circadian/pseuds/The_Circadian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during S01E08. Spoilers for Season 1 through that episode.</p><p>After Will's kiss with Alana, Will comes to Hannibal to ask for advice and finds dessert and a therapeutic proposition from Hannibal for hypnotherapy in the case of Will's continued disturbance. Though skeptical, Will eventually comes around to the treatment unaware of the nature of curiosity Hannibal holds for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Petite Mort

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to my betas Licia and Kate. This is a gift for Matt, because he told me to do it. :P

 

 

“That’s why you kissed her. A clutch for balance.” Hannibal muses as he spoons the whipped goat cream over the warm bread pudding.

Will shrugs, fed up, but there’s truth to Hannibal’s words and he knows it.

“You said yourself, what you do is not good for you.”

“Well, unfortunately I’m good for it,” Will replies sourly.

Hannibal pushes the second plate Will’s way. “Comfort food.”

Will huffs a laugh. “I haven’t had bread pudding in years,” he mutters, lifts his spoon after looking the dessert over - its pretty display and aroma slowing his approach to it just briefly. He brings a mouthful to his lips, chews, raising his eyebrows, the faintest hint of a genuine happy smile there and gone so fast it might as well not have happened but Hannibal lets himself take it, a small triumph. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”

Hannibal feels a warmth in his chest and smiles as Will digs in with a quietly furious hunger. The scene, although it shouldn’t be considering the circumstances that surround the two of them and who they are, is a rather adorable one. There is something parental in the gesture, like comforting a child who’s had a very bad day.

“Are you still hearing this killer’s serenade behind your eyes?”

Will tilts his head, chewing slower. “Well, it’s our song.”

Hannibal watches Will return to his meal and put away half of the dish before he sighs and puts his spoon down, saying apologetically, “I’m afraid my appetite isn’t game for much comfort right now.” Hannibal offers him a smile meant to express casual forgiveness when he meets his gaze, because, of course, Will means it as a joke, but there is a kind of pathetic tint of self-flagellation to it.

Hannibal considers this next move; he’s considered it many times, curiosity creeping up to touch at the possibility of Will letting him in further.

“Will, what would you say if I suggested hypnotherapy?”

Will straightens, frowning. “Are you serious?” He asks with an edge of incredulity.

“Very.”

Hannibal watches as Will turns, paces away from the island separating them and then stops, turns back to stare at the tiles on the side wall, his overwhelmed smile tight as a grimace. Hannibal expected such a reaction. Will is at wits end now. His shoulders show his exhaustion, the dark circles under his eyes tell just as much. And he needs help, even if it’s in his nature to cope like this with avoidance, Hannibal can tell. He hasn’t flat out said ‘no’ too, and that is a good sign. After all, this is offer of relief. And Will is more desperate for peace of mind than he’ll admit. Hannibal knows this too.

Hannibal picks up Will’s plate and busies himself putting away what is left in a small cardboard take away box.

“Rather old fashioned for you, isn’t it?” Will smirks, even in his obvious discomfort. “Are you going to swing a watch in front of me?” He jokes, arms crossed, as he continues to casually pace along the span of the island, a dock he’s not ready to dive from, avoiding eye contact with Hannibal, physically active and shut off at once.

Hannibal keeps a serious tone. “I prefer to use a strobe.” Will meets eyes with him finally. “Garrett Jacob Hobbs can’t leave your head unless we know where he’s living. It would be one way to find him and that could lead to figuring out the best way to rid him from your subconscious.”

Will eyes him with doubtful unease, but a settling kind of intrigue. Maybe hope. Quietly Hannibal adds, “I wouldn’t suggest it, Will, if I didn’t think it was worth consideration.”

Will worries his lip with his teeth momentarily before relinquishing, “Alright. I’m considering it.”

 

The flashing blue light paints an eerie cast over Will’s features every three seconds.

Two days was less than Hannibal expected for Will to come around but there he was, for their standing appointment, ready and willing, stuttering “It’s worth a shot” before Hannibal could even ask for his coat.

The devil you know can only torment a man for so long.

Will is lying back on the couch at Hannibal’s request . Though at the beginning of the hypnosis his face was creased with stress, in the past few moments it’s relaxed to something softer. Hannibal speaks slowly, evenly, and breathes slower along with Will as he sinks deeper down into himself.

“Three… Two…”

Will’s mouth opens as he exhales a notably long breath, like he’s submerging himself gracefully into a stream.

“One.” Hannibal sits and waits a moment, watches Will deep in entrancement and feels a thrill at it. He admires this man’s control, to see it given up like this so trustingly is achingly lovely. Will’s face is a picture of peace right now, mouth slightly open, eyelids relaxed, brow dry of sweat, dark curls framing his face angelically.

“You are sitting in a room. It is your room. It is your home, filled with things you have known all your life.”

Will doesn’t respond.

“You feel safe,” Hannibal continues, “both in the comfort of this room and the sound of my voice. Feel that safety around you.”

The metronome strobe flashes away over Will, now far away.

“I want you see yourself rising and walking through this room to the door across from you. Can you do that for me?”

Will inhales a shallow breath, says softly, “Yes.”

Hannibal waits a moment and then says, “I am going to count down and when I get to ‘one’ you will open the door out of this room with nothing to fear.”

Will nods just barely.

“Five… You are rising from where you sit.” Hannibal takes a deep breath and can almost feel for himself the peace Will has drifted down into, like a cool bath. “Four… you are walking toward the door. Three…” Hannibal imagines it with him, sees Will move through the domestic space of this comfortable part of his mind, “you are in front of the door now… Two, you are placing your hand on the doorknob.” While Will is still as the dead here in this room, Hannibal can see Will in his mind’s eye, see his hand surround the doorknob and the flex his grip as he turns it. “One, you open it.”  He lets stillness and light center Will before continuing on. “A hallway waits for you.” And Hannibal can see that too, a corridor that leads to inky darkness, the unknown and locked wings of Will’s mind. “I want you to see yourself walking down this hallway until you come to another door. Can you see the door ahead?”

“Yes.” Will breathes it out.

“Behind that door is the first moment you saw Garrett Jacob Hobbs.” Hannibal speaks the name clearly and casually and pauses while it stirs up what it needs to in Will. “I want you to see yourself approach this moment, calmly, without fear or desire, completely aware of the fact that you are safe. Focus on my voice.” Will’s face changes slightly, an expression of distress caught and gone in the blue of the strobe, as Hannibal counts. “Five, you are nearing this door.” Will turns his head away. “Four, you are reaching out towards it.” Will turns his head back towards him, his breathing quickening. “Three, you are placing your hand to it.”

“No…” Will’s body is tense across from him, hands now fists.

“Two, you are listening to my voice, Will, focusing on the safety of this sound as you turn the knob.”

Will whines.

“One. You open this door and step through.”

Will relaxes almost immediately. Between them is nothing but the sound of breath, the pulsing flash of the metronome.

“What do you see, Will?”

A long moment passes. “I-I don’t know,” he says finally. “I can’t see him yet. I can’t- he’s not in range.”

“Are you in the Hobbs home?” Hannibal asks.

Will nods once, head shifting reflexively, just slightly, like he’s heard something close by. “He’s in the kitchen, he’s got her. I can hear her.”

“Abigail. You cannot see her yet.”

“No,” Will says, jaw tight. “But when I do, I’ll see him. I’ll see him and I will shoot.”  The last few words are cut apart and decided. Is that pride, Hannibal hears? Conviction?

“He’s expecting you to shoot him.”

Will smiles, with no delight, murmurs, “Yes.”

“Do you want to shoot this man, Will?”

Will bites his lip, whispers finally, sumptuously, “Yes. But I don’t know it until now, just now. When I see her in his arms…”

“You will have to save her this way,” Hannibal says and Will nods again more frantically. “Will, I want you to approach this as one who knows nothing of this man. I would like you to—

“His face. He’s… crying?” Will says, distraught. “I want to save her. I want to save her so I have to. Don’t you see? I have to...” Will sobs and then starts with a gasp, a violent shift of perspective, visible to the eye even to Hannibal as Will goes right into Hobb’s head even now. “I have to...”

“Will, I want you to let her go.”

“I can feel her heart, I can feel her frightened little heart,” he says through his teeth. “But she’s ready. She’s ready to let me make it all stop.” Will lets out a shaking groan, fists shaking. “Oh, God, I’m killing her— _I’m killing her_ —”

“Will.” Too far. “Five, you are leaving this scene.” Will groans out protest again, still trembling. “Four, you are walking back through the door you passed through, calm and serene.”

There’s a shuddering breath from Will, much as one has after a good cry, his body and mind seemingly finding a small path of steady ground to follow.

“Three, you are walking down the same hall as before, now to another door.” Hannibal slows the pace of his words to a crawl, notes the shallowing breaths from Will, the laxness of him limbs in response.

“Two… this door will lead you to the last place you felt safe and aware of yourself.”  Will breathes deeply again, turning his face to the ceiling directly, throat exposed and wet with cooling sweat. “Three, you reach the door.” Hannibal waits a moment, lets Will’s subconscious take its time to lead Will back to a bright, comfortable place. “Two, you are opening the door.” Hannibal observes Will’s passive form a moment longer, the long line of him, legs fallen open.

“One, you are inside.”

Will sighs at that, face relaxing into a gentle smile.

“Where are you, Will?”

It’s a moment before he distractedly replies, “At home.”

“What are you doing there?”

“I’m kissing Alana Bloom.”

Hannibal feels his eyebrows raise. An instantaneous small flare of jealousy at not being first choice in this regard is quickly extinguished by the utterly new expression Hannibal sees on Will. His cheeks are flushed and not with that sweet smelling fever he carries so often, but a darker, earthier, more momentarily insistent rise in body temperature. A ripple of something flows through him, makes him shift his hips.

And all at once it’s quite obvious to Hannibal that Will is aroused.

Hannibal’s mouth goes a little dry, a strange predatory feeling in his gut simultaneously creeping up his spine. He considers his next move with care.

Will smiles again, but then his lips part with want, and Hannibal desires to see where this leads. This is definitely not professional curiosity, but Hannibal is nothing if not unorthodoxically professional in his technique.

“Does she return this show of affection?”

“Yes. Yes, but she says she’s confused,” Will whispers, small frown in his brow, “maybe scared.”

Hannibal taps his finger on his knee quietly, deciding. “Do you think she should be?”

Will shakes his head. “I—I don’t know. I don’t want her to be.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to keep kissing her.” The furrow in Will’s brow is as pronounced as before and he grits out a small frustrated sound. He’s sweating, hands clasping onto echoing memories of a warm body pressed close.

“Will.” Hannibal keeps his voice decidedly clinical despite the hunger he feels on his own tongue. “I would like you to imagine yourself in this moment as you wished it had unfolded.”

Will’s face relaxes slightly as if he was only waiting for permission, his mouth opening as the pace of his breathing grows faster, deeper, his fingers twitching over his thighs.

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’m…” Will licks his lips. “She’s kissing me again. She’s kissing me like she cares about me. She tells me she loves me.”

Hannibal’s mouth turns up to one side a bit. Will is quite the romantic it seems. Who knew?

“She’s… she’s wearing that dress she wears to work sometimes. The one with the vines.” Will smiles, shakily confesses, “I can always see the outline of her panties through it… could reach into the top easily. I can… hold her breasts in my hands. I can… kiss them…”

Will’s forearms are tense, muscles and veins undulating with the grasping of his fists. “She’s loud. She’s… like a hound in heat. Demanding,” he grits out, and Hannibal watches, awestruck, as Will shifts his hips up reflexively, outline of his erection now pressed visibly against his trousers. “She’s pushing me down to the ground. She can tell how much I want… I want… She… unbuttons--”

Will interrupts his own words with a shaking moan, shifts his hips up again, and then again, body seeking friction desperately. Hannibal is intoxicated by it, can taste how close Will is to the edge, his body tight as a bowstring and arching to take itself just that much further, to that pinnacle and fall of release, so close Will’s losing the ability to articulate the scene so Hannibal leads him back, pushes on.

“And you take her.”

Will whimpers like it hurts. “She takes _me_ ,” he whispers it like a dark secret, and then, through ragged gasps, “she doesn’t even undress me… she…” he groans, “just holds me down and… _pushes_ me into her.” The last word dissolves into a shuddering moan, a shaking pivot of hips, grasping fingers.

“She’s wet?” Hannibal can’t help but supply.

Will nods violently, desperately. “And tight. And _warm_ ,” he sobs. “And she just… she’s— she’s already there,” He inhales, shaky and frantic, as he pivots hard into a body not there. “She’s c-coming.” He throws his head back. “I can… _feel it_ , she’s— Oh… _oh_ …”

The strobe catches Will’s climax, moment after moment, like photos of a crime, the purest unadulterated shock of ecstasy Hannibal has ever seen firsthand, and he feels a throb of echoed want in his own groin at the sight. Will’s expression is almost innocent in its rapture, and Hannibal can hear the intensity of the peak in the low guttural sound of Will succumbing to the pleasure of it, the soft puppy-like whimpers as he comes down, convulsing with little aftershocks.

The room grows quiet again save for small huffs of breath from Will as his heartrate slows, his breathing slows, too blissed out now to speak further. The air tastes of salt and ejaculate, and a new musky sent that is specifically Will’s that Hannibal is going to card away into his memory palace for as long as he lives.

How exquisite this man is, even taken apart.

Hannibal watches Will in this vulnerable state a moment longer with near reverence. Rather unwelcomely, the thought that this would be what it would be like to wake next to him - Will’s head on the pillow beside him, dark curls and those peaceful features, shining in the warm morning light. Hannibal almost laughs at himself for imagining it, almost laughs at the sentimental ache in his chest at the thought. What a wonder.

He takes a deep breath, studies his pen.

“Five, you are leaving this scene and walking out the door.” Will’s eyelids flutter just slightly. “Four, you are walking back down the hall to your room, feeling more alert. Three,” Hannibal rises to come closer to the metronome and puts his hand to the switch, close enough now to see the small damp spot growing over Will’s hip. “You are passing back into your room, more alert now.” He’s going quicker than he should, and he can see discomfort in Will’s features at his pace, as if pulled up too fast like a diver from the deep. “Two, you are returning to yourself, unaware of what has transpired here, feeling refreshed and invigorated and calm. One.”

He snaps his fingers and turns off the strobe.

Will breathes in deeply, distinctive as one waking from slumber. He blinks slowly then wipes his hands over his face. “Done?”

“Yes, for today.” Hannibal replies as he turns to sit back in his chair and plays at jotting down a few notes while he waits for his next move.

He hears the shift of Will sitting up and glances over to see confusion creep over Will’s face. Will’s hand tentatively presses to where he’s wet. A flush rises to his cheeks and his eyes flit about the room, embarrassed and unsure. And even more surprisingly to Hannibal, from that now familiar smell, slightly newly aroused even so. Will opens his mouth in question, but can’t seem to form the words.

“Will, it’s a rare but not unheard of reaction to touching on subconscious thoughts. There is no need to be ashamed,” Hannibal says carefully as he rises, fetching a glass of water from the pitcher nearby. “I should apologize to you. I tried to stop the scene from going such a direction but it spiraled rather quickly.”

He hands the glass to Will who accepts it bashfully. Will’s humiliation is palpable. Hannibal would spoon it up if he could. But he also sees the necessity for kindness in this moment. And truthfully he feels he owes it to him after Will let him see such a beautiful sight, if by his will or not.

“You may clean up in my bathroom if you like.”

Will pulls his coat over his lap, still wrecked looking and unhappily debauched. “I think I’d rather leave.” He’s still blushing down to his collar and sweating. Hannibal tastes it on him, a spicy, sour thing.

“I’m a doctor, Will, and I am your friend. Don’t worry yourself about the fickle nature of the body. Such things are often out of our control.”

Will glances up at this briefly, maybe grateful for the words, maybe not.

“Do you feel better?” Hannibal asks.

Will raises his eyebrows in actual consideration of the question, despite the discomfort. He breathes deep. “It’s hard to say.”

“Clean yourself up and let me make you dinner. Lamb and something strong to drink, I think. And we can discuss what I found of Hobbs in your mind.” Hannibal offers him a smile, still keeping eye contact minimal and polite for Will’s sake. “Or more pleasant conversation, if you’d like. You’re probably famished.”

Will wets his lips in thought, shifts in his seat, and gives in as reluctantly and deliciously as ever.

 

  



End file.
